Epic Death! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview & Objective
• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
• Phases
  • 1. Quest Phase
  • 2. Fate Phase
  • 3. Dice Pool Phase
  • 4. Rolling Phase
  • EPIC DEATH!
  • Epic Quest Phase
• Game End
  • Calculating Final EPIC score
• Notes on Stacking
• Components in Detail

Overview & Objective

In EPIC DEATH!, your goal is to complete as many Quests as possible, with your party of Adventurers gaining fame, Victory, and Loot before finally meeting death against the biggest monster you can find!

To represent the glory (or lack of it) your Adventurers accrue in the game, two scores are used: EPIC and FAIL. The Player at the end of the game with the highest EPIC score is the winner.

Players are encouraged to describe the adventure on their Quest for EPIC DEATH!

Components

158 cards comprising of the following:

• 20 Adventurers
• 20 Epic Quests
• 20 Quests
• 59 Loot
• 39 Fate

16 Six sided dice

A detailed description of the game components with illustrations can be found in the "Components in Detail" section at the end of this rule book.

Setup

1. Decks and Dice

   • Shuffle the Epic Quest cards and place them as a deck, facedown between the Players.
   • Shuffle the Quest cards and place on top of the Epic Quest cards, forming the Quest Deck.
   • Place the Loot and Fate Decks next to the Quest Deck, leaving enough room for discard piles for each deck.
   • Place the sixteen dice next to the decks in the center of the playing area.

2. Choose a Party

   • Split the Adventurer cards into four sets of five Adventurers, making four Adventurer Parties. If you are playing with five people, make five sets of four Adventurers instead.
   • Hand one of the Adventurer Parties to each Player.
   • Each Player then lines their party up in a row in front of them.

3. The Hands of Fate

   • Five Fate cards are dealt face down to each Player (Players can look at their own cards to see what they have).

During gameplay, if a Player has fewer than five Fate cards at the end of his or her turn, and has failed a Quest, they draw more Fate cards, to a total of five. If they have successfully completed a Quest, they instead take the Fate Reward printed on the Quest card.

Gameplay

The Player who has the most epic face goes first. This Player draws five cards from the top of the Quest Deck and places them face up in a row in the center (see illustration), forming a Quest Line. And so begins the game!

Note: When Playing with 5 Players only four cards should be turned face up when creating the Quest Line. This ensures everyone gets a chance to pick first. To keep the game exciting with fewer than four Players, it is recommended you play with 5 Quest and 5 Epic Quest Cards per Player.

Phases

A Player's turn is made up of four phases described below. A Player completes all four phases of their turn before play moves clockwise to the next Player.

1. Quest Phase

The active Player chooses any Quest from the Quest Line. If there are no Quest cards to choose from, the active Player must turn over five cards from the Quest Deck as described in setup, forming a new Quest Line, then choose one.

2. Fate Phase

Before attempting the Quest, Players have a chance to play Fate cards as described below.

Deadly Cards and Resurrect Cards: First, any Players wanting to play a Deadly or Resurrect card must nominate a target before they do so.

Deadly and Resurrect cards can only be played on the active Player's Adventurers. Deadly cards can only target living Adventurers, whilst resurrect cards can only target dead Adventurers. Only one of each type can be played on an Active Players Quest. Active Players are free to play either card type on their own Adventurers if they wish.

Only Adventurers with a score (FAIL or EPIC) on them can be chosen as targets for these cards, and only one of each type can be played per Quest.

In the case of a Deadly card being played, if a Player fails to complete the Quest the Adventurer targeted by the Deadly card dies and is turned over so the 'DEAD!' text is showing. The failed Quest is placed under the Adventurer, adding FAIL to the Player's final score. If the Player succeeds, the Deadly card is discarded and has no effect.

Resurrect cards resurrect a targeted dead Adventurer upon successful completion of a Quest. The Adventurer is turned face up and is now considered alive. The completed Quest is placed under them and the Adventurer can take EPIC and FAIL as normal. If the Quest is failed, the Resurrect card is discarded and has no effect.

Dead/Living Adventurers: Adventurers are considered dead when they are turned over so the 'DEAD!' text is showing on the back of a card. Adventurers only count towards your score in this state. Adventurers are considered alive when they are face up, with the Adventurers portrait showing.

Ancient Pact and Deadly Cards: If an Ancient Pact card has been played on a Quest with a Deadly card in play, the Player of the 'Ancient Pact' card must choose one of their own Adventurers as a target instead.

Fate Cards: After Deadly and/or Resurrect Cards have been played, any 'play before roll' Fate cards can be played by any Player. Fate cards are discarded after use. Players can use as many Fate cards as they wish. Multiples of the same card can be played (unless stated otherwise on the card) and all modifiers are cumulative.

3. Dice Pool Phase

A Player's dice pool always starts at 10 dice but can be modified. Any -/+ Fate card modifiers are cumulative.

Once all Players are done playing Fate cards, the active Player first checks to see if they have enough dice left to complete the Quest. If their dice pool has been reduced below the number of Victories required on the Quest card, the party has failed to complete the Quest and the active Player must place the card under an Adventurer of their choice (or the Adventurer targetted by a Deadly card if one has been played).

Frenzy: If a Frenzy card has been played the Player has a chance even if their dice pool is reduced to one and so can roll as normal. Good luck!

4. Rolling Phase

The active Player now rolls their dice.

Checking Difficulty and Victory Conditions: There are three difficulties described on the Quests, with different target numbers for each one.

After rolling the dice, the active Player checks the following to see if they have completed the Quest, all of which information can be found on the Quest card:

• Trivial Quest (Green): 4, 5 and 6 on a die counts as a Victory.
• Mighty Quest (Yellow): 5 and 6 on a die counts as a Victory.
• Exalted Quest (Red): 6 on a die counts as a Victory.

Victories Target: This number is the number of Victories needed to complete the Quest. If you rolled a number of Victories equal to or higer than the Vicoty Target, your Quest was successful!

After rolling the dice, Players may use any 'play after rolling' Fate cards.

Rewards: If the Player has succeeded, they may now draw the cards listed under 'Rewards' on the Quest card. Loot cards must either be played immediately under their own living Adventurers, or discarded.

Loot drawn from the Loot deck can replace a Loot card of the same Loot Class on your own Adventurers. The replaced Loot card is discarded.

Fate cards are added to the Players hand.

Loot & Sets: Adventurers can only carry a certain number of Loot cards. Each Adventurer can have one of each type of Loot Class (Helmet/Armor/Weapon).

If an Adventurer gets a Full Set (three Loot cards with the same 'Set' name) that Set is worth a bonus 400 EPIC when the scores are counted at the end of the game.

Loot in play can only be swapped between Players Adventurers with the use of a Loot Envy card, so be careful when choosing!

Failing and Drawing Fate: If the active Player fails the Quest, the card is placed under one of their own living Adventurers, adding FAIL to their score.

The active Player may then replenish their hand back up to five Fate cards. This ends the Player's turn. The next Player in clockwise order then becomes the active Player and takes their turn, and so on, until all Quests are completed.

EPIC DEATH!

If a Player is lucky enough to roll a number of Victories exactly equal to the requirements on the Epic Quest card, they have achieved EPIC DEATH! simultaneously completing the Quest and dying heroically in the process.

In this case, the Player chooses one of their Adventurers to kill and turns the Epic Quest card over when they place it underneath them. It is now worth double the EPIC score printed in the Epic Seal on the front of the card.

Players who acheive an EPIC DEATH! count as failing in regards to Rewards and so draw back up to five Fate cards, and do not take the Rewards listed on the Epic Quest card.

Epic Quest Phase

Once you have completed all of the the green Quest cards, your Adventurers move onto Epic Quests. Epic Quests differ from standard Quests in a few ways. As your Adventurers want to meet death in glorious battle whilst undertaking Epic Quests, there is no FAIL score.

If a Player fails an Epic Quest, they must choose one of their own Adventurers to kill, and the card is placed under the Adventurer adding to their EPIC score representing the fact they have died in an epic battle. If they succeed, they take the Rewards of their Victory as normal.

Remember, only dead Adventurers count towards your final score, so in the Epic Quest phase it can be useful to play positive Fate cards on your rivals in an effort to deny them the chance to kill an Adventurer!

Using Deadly Cards on Epic Quests: Deadly cards can be played as normal on Epic Quests, allowing the Player of the card to effectively choose who is killed if the Epic Quest is failed.

Game End

The game ends when a Player manages to kill their entire Party, or when all the Epic Quests are completed, whichever happens first.

Calculating Final EPIC score

Only cards under dead Adventurers count toward your final score!

The Players count up all of their EPIC from their Loot (including any Set bonuses), Epic Quests and EPIC DEATHS! Then take away any FAIL they have accrued from that total. The number left over is your final EPIC! score.

The Player with the highest EPIC score wins the game!

Notes on Stacking

We designed all the cards to stack in a way that we found worked best for both table space and clarity! When playing, you should:

• Stack any 'EPIC' scoring cards underneath the top of your Adventurers.
• Stack any 'FAIL' scoring cards underneath the bottom of your Adventurers.
• Turn any EPIC DEATH! scoring cards over and stack underneath the top of your Adventurers.
• When playing Fate cards, we have found it useful to stack helpful cards on the right of the Quest, and any hindering cards on the left. This is useful when a lot of -/+ dice cards get used in a turn. You can also leave the dice used to determine any -/+D6 cards on the card.

Components in Detail

Adventurer Cards (Black): These cards represent the mighty Adventurers you will use to acquire EPIC and complete Quests.

1. Name: name of the Adventurer.
2. Class/quote: Describes the Adventurer.

Quest Card (Green)/Epic Quest card (Red): These cards represent the Quests your Adventurers will attempt to complete during the course of the game. Epic Quests represent deadly challenges and offer a chance to attain an EPIC DEATH!

1. Title: Quest name/quote
2. Victories: Victories needed to complete the Quest.
3. Difficulty: number needed for a dice roll to be considered a Victory.
4. Reward: Fate/Loot cards drawn if successful.
5. FAIL seal: FAIL added to Adventurer if unsuccessful.
6. EPIC seal: EPIC added to an Adventurer if an Adventurer fails and dies.

Loot Card (Gold): These cards are used to track how much EPIC an Adventurer has accrued through completing Quests.

1. Title: name/quote.
2. Loot Class: type of Loot (Helmet/Armour/Weapon).
3. Set: identifies if the item belongs to a set.
4. EPIC seal: EPIC added to Adventurer if equipped.

Fate Card (Purple): Fate cards represent powerful items, gods and events that can help or hinder Adventurers attempting a Quest.

1. Title: name/quote.
2. Effect: Overview of the effect of the card.
3. Rules: Describes when the card can be played and how to resolve the effect.